Smile Giveaway

When I had my wisdom teeth out (which obviously let me somewhat stupid), I did not react well to the anesthesia. I was left in a small private room strapped to a gurney. When I came to, I was convinced I was in a Nazi concentration camp (?!), about to be interrogated. Panicked, I eventually managed to undo the Velcro straps and tumble off the gurney. (All the while, the Mission Impossible theme music was playing in my head.) The door to my room was ajar and I crawled into a long hallway with a door at the end that I was sure was my only escape. A nurse (obviously a Nazi) saw me, yelled something (probably "Heil, Hitler!") and came after me. I crawled/stumbled/somehow got to the door at the end of the hall and desperately tried to turn the knob. Unfortunately, I had turned into a dog with no opposable thumbs and even incessant slapping of the knob, accompanied by, “Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please,” would not open the door. The nurse caught up with me, grabbed me from behind, and I screamed, “No, don’t kill me!” The dentist came out of his room, whereupon I really started screaming because he wore a white coat and had a syringe in his hand. By this time there was a commotion in the waiting room and the receptionist and a crowd of rather concerned looking individuals flooded the hallway. At that point, the staff was more than happy to let me go and I was so grateful to have been rescued.

I think that experience alone should’ve told me I was a writer.

I was one of the first kids to get braces in my 8th grade class and for a quick minute I felt supercool. Then I had them tightened. And it hurt. Oh well, I told myself, pain is beauty, beauty is pain, right? Everyone was curious about them, wanted their own, was jealous of my neon pink rubber bands. Soon they got braces and the novelty wore off, but as the first person to have had them I was also the first person to have them taken off. Now my teeth- straight and white- were what people envied as they endured their own beauty pain. And I'm pretty sure I did some serious bragging.

Flash forward to junior year. Braces are out. No one wants them. No one has them.

Except me. Again. What? What! Apparently, the orthodontist had taken them off a few months too early and now as I sat in the medieval chair, paper apron covered in drool, he informed me that I would have to have my braces put back on. I screamed. I cried. I stood up and tried to run out the door. But my mother blocked my path and pushed me back to the chair. Nothing to brag about now.

-Elizabeth (liznwyrk@gmail.com)

Here are two entries that Arielle emailed to me:

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My neighbor-friends and I all went to the same orthodontist. This orthodontist had an assistant named Hector that none of us really liked. My old neighbor, Jonny, spread the rumor that one day, while I was sitting in the chair, Hector had drooled into my mouth. My neighbors all believed this, and could constantly giggle when they saw me. I had no idea what was going on until one of them finally asked if it was true, and of course I said it wasn't but Jonny stuck to that story for a long time.

<<>>

When I first got braces, I wasn't used to how to brush effectively with them and so my gums were pretty swollen. My first time going to my dentist with them, I was a little ashamed of this and it was only made worse when I got a very stern lecture from the dental assistant on how I was clearly apathetic about my teeth. Nervous about what the dentist would say, I immediately began trying to come up with a good reason for why my gums were like that. When he sat down the first thing he said was "When I last saw you, you didn't have those red lines on your teeth!" Of course I assumed that by "red lines" he meant the red lines of my swollen gums, so I immediately launched into a red faced several minute long explanation about it until he interrupted me and said "Arielle, don't worry I was just referring to the red color you chose for your braces..." I don't think he has ever forgotten this.

<<>>

Kristy Locklin
kristy@locklin.org


After a long, insurance-less absence, I’m back in the dreaded dentist’s chair listening to the Muzak version of “That’s What Friends Are For.”

The masked woman looming above me is definitely not my friend. She is the devil in blue scrubs.

“Are you flossing daily?” she asks, inspecting my mouth with a tiny mirror.

“Uh (choke) huh,” I lie, gagging on the instrument.

She raises a skeptical eyebrow and turns to her tray of stainless steel torture devices. Like Freddy Krueger with a DMD degree, she proceeds to hack at my gums until they bleed. Apparently, inadequate dental hygiene is something this woman takes personally.

Each time I wince, creases form around Dr. Krueger’s eyes. She is either grimacing in sympathy or grinning with sadomasochistic delight.

She hands me a cup and instructs me to rise. I swish the water around in my mouth and spit a red stream into the bowl next to my chair. I am shocked by the amount of blood. Suddenly, my head feels heavy, as if it’s one of those monolithic noggins on Easter Island. The room begins to spin.

By humming the aforementioned Dionne Warwick tune, I manage to stay conscious during my fluoride treatment.

When my teeth are clean and I’ve lost at least two pints of blood, Dr. Krueger removes her mask and latex gloves. To my surprise, she does not have fangs or finger-knives.

“Don’t forget to floss,” she says, wagging a complimentary toothbrush in my direction.

Fearful of opening my mouth and spewing forth a crimson goodbye, I nod my head and totter out the door.

It’s the middle of evening rush hour and I have to fight my way through throngs of people before reaching my apartment. I check my mailbox and make small talk with the neighbors, including the hot guy in 708. Once I’m home, I sigh with relief and snuggle my cat. My kiss leaves a blood stain on his furry head.

Horrified, I run to the bathroom mirror. I don’t recognize the face staring back at me because it’s COVERED IN BLOOD! And not just a small, Dracula-esque drop at the corner of my mouth, but big, red streaks across both cheeks and a sanguine soul patch on my chin.

I look like Gene Simmons after a KISS concert!

Cursing Dr. Krueger, I splash warm water on my face, take a deep breath and – remembering Dionne Warwick’s advice – keep smiling, keep shining.

I hope I'm entering this right (I always mess up in the comments section of LiveJournal)

I hate going to the dentist, I freak out everytime I have to go. The worst part besides the pain is that my eyes are sensitive to light so when I'm in the chair, my eyes won't stop watering so it seems like I'm always crying because I'm in pain! The dentist will either a)ignore me or b) stop (and feign) concern and I will then explain that I'm not really crying, my eyes are just super sensitvie (it's true! Stop rolling your eyes, haha). I'm never believed, they just pat my hand sympathetically and allow me to keep 'crying' (no tissues or anything). Thereby, I'm regulated to being known as a teenager who cries even when she's only getting a check-up (I used to be known as the kid who threw up after every cleaning-yup that was me)

willbprez (at) aol (dot)com

Thanks for this opportunity Little Willow, Raina and Scholastic!

My teeth are a never-ending story.

I fell down a flight of stairs when I was little, knocking out my two front baby teeth. One grew in fine, the other grew up. Had to have painful and long oral surgery at age 8 to get that front tooth down where it belonged. I was awarded for this by receiving braces.
I had braces.
I had to wear the headgear.
I had to put the wax on my braces to protect my gums.
I had a retainer.
I've had cavities and root canals. I've broken teeth (I will never eat Grape Nuts again) and broken fillings. I have never smoked and floss nightly (I really do!) and yet my husband, the ex-smoker who went 10+ years between dental visits, has never had a cavity.

That's a very long introduction to my embarrassing story. I had a temporary cap on one of my teeth. It fell off on a Saturday,, so I had to go the weekend without it. I was arguing with my kids (ages 7 and 9 at the time) about brushing their teeth better and said "Do you want this to happen to you?" and pulled out the temporary cap. They both screamed in horror and brushed their teeth better than any child in history. I went to bed that night thinking I was a shoo-in for mother of the year.

Fast-forward a few days and I'm at the kids' school, picking them up from their after-school program. Some back story: We live in a very up and up small town, near a major university and research hospital. My husband and I are not in the same pay scale as most of the parents at our kids' school.

Anyway, I walk in the room and a group of kids come running up to me.

"Is it true you can pull out your teeth? SHOW US! SHOW US!"

All the other parents look at me like I was the trashiest person they had ever seen. I wanted to say I had more money in my teeth than they spent on their cars, but that seemed like the wrong way to behave in front of children.

-- Merrie
meredithkhd@yahoo.com

http://www.sketchfervor.com/awesomesauce/comix/amelia099.jpg

by Amelia Altavena, aaltavena@gmail.com
www.sketchfervor.com
:D

Oh I've made many a trip to the dentist and probably embarassed myself a few times but the worst had to have been my freshman year in college. At that point I was still on my dad's insurance and he would always schedule my annual cleaning smack dab in the middle of Fiesta Week in San Antonio.

After a night filled with drinking and debauchery I came home around 3AM and thought about my dentist appointment at 9AM the next day. I figured I'd prep myself early so I stayed up till till like 4 flossing, brushing and sloshing assorted mouthwash flavors till my mouth was as clean as whistle.

When I got up at 8:45 the next morning I figured I'd done so much the night before I could just skip right over to the dentist without brushing that day. When I settled into the reclining chair, I started to notice the dental hygienist wincing through her face mask. I knew something was up when she backed away from my mouth and set her tools down.

"Christian how often are you brushing?" she said. "I'm getting a very strong odor here, even through my mask." I explained that I was brushing regularly but she was'nt buying it. She began to give me a lecture on self hygiene like I've never had before. In all my 18 years not even my mom had ripped me like this lady. It seemingly went on and on and covered a range of topics far beyond my mouth.

At that point I didn't even want to go into my reasoning behind not brushing that morning. After sloshing some mouthwash around for her my cleaning continued and I learned some valuable lessons on self grooming that I'll never forget.

I needed to have two teeth extracted to straighten out the remainder on my lower jaw, but the dentist dealing with me didn't allow the Novocaine to work its magic before taking out the first tooth. Understandably, I screamed. Loudly. So perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that after I was given the injection for the second extraction, I told the woman I wasn’t going to have the work done.

It wasn’t until I got home that the anaesthetic kicked in – just in time for my mother to ask me if I would go to the Post Office for her to get a first-class stamp! So my trip was delayed for about five minutes while I tried to say “I’d like to buy a first-class stamp” without either sounding like I was on day-release from the local mental ward, or leaving my chin glistening with drool...

(For the sake of posterity and my tattered reputation, I managed it without the cashier falling off their seat with laughter.)

I went several years without seeing a dentist for various reasons. When I started going again, I had an abscessed molar. (When it drained a few days later, it looked like a bad horror movie.) The dentist took a long look at my crumbling teeth and asked me if I ever used drugs. I replied no.

He poked at my teeth with an instrument, looked some more, and asked again. Still no.

He then went to the waiting room and asked my husband if I've used drugs. My husband laughed so hard it could probably be heard outside.

The dentist hasn't asked again.

(He's still my regular dentist -- and my daughter's.)

I have a really horrible gag reflex and always dread getting my teeth x-rayed—my gag reflex kicks in and I have a hard time keeping still. The worst time was when I went to a new dentist for the first time and 3 dental assistants had to physically hold me down—2 had me by the shoulders and 1 held my head still. I was 28 at the time.
Sarah
sdabdilorenzo@gmail.com

When I first got braces, the dentist went on for quite some time and quite some insistence about how I couldn't have ANY sweets at all for a month or two while the bonding agent had completely hardened. Being an obedient kid with a mother who didn't catch his ulterior motives, I complied. My next appointment was just before Thanksgiving and the dentist said that I should be able to partake of some of the deserts by then. Thanksgiving came, and my family went over to a relative's house for dinner. After a very filling meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. -- and an eternity of not having any sweets at all (I missed Halloween that year, dang it!) -- I gorged on pumpkin pie, "Death by Chocolate" cake, pecan pie, more pumpkin pie, more cake... I found myself throwing up in the bathroom inside of an hour, and I had to come back down to the dinner table, where the adults were still eating, and ask for assistance to clean up the mess.

Sean Kleefeld
sean(dot)kleefeld(at)fuse(dot)net

Hi, I don't know how to upload a comment, so I am emailing you, this experience actully happened to me. My most embrassing experience was not at the dentist but the orthodonist, actully the whole experience was embrassing. I was in fifth grade, and getting my braces, nobody in my family had crooked teeth, my mother did get braces and head gear. That morning, I got up, my mom took me to the orothdonist that morning. I neverously sat in the lobby, "It won't hurt, right I fretted", she smiled at me, but a person came out with braces, and said that it hurt, I ran to the door, "I don't want to get them" I yelled, everyone was watching me, I ran out the door and nearly left the parking lot, but my mother caught me and pushed me back in, "Your getting them on" she yelled, everyone still looking at me, I blushed. It was my turn, at first getting them on wasen't so bad, but the orthodonist relized my wires were to small, so he had to get the correct size, it was embrassing me sitting there and having wires sticking out of my mouth and people staring at me, finally he got them on, but I was allegeric to something and my cheeks puffed up like a chickmunk . Next, to make matters worse, I had to go to school, and when I arrived I saw my best friend, me looking like a swollen person to make matters worse when I talk to her, I sounded funny, and had a lisp ! after a few days, I no longer looked like chickmunk, and a few days later, I went to girl scouts and showed off my tin grin, every one thought it was so cool and wanted braces.

- Caitlin (girlfriend.murray@comcast.net)

I was going to illustrate this, but I'm on deadline right now and can't put my best foot forward. T_T;;

Anyhoo, here's the written story~

Do you remember those pureed fruit sheets stuck to plastic sheets? I used to love those as a kid (and still do) and would have my parents get them as our snack food when we were dropped off at my grandparent's house for summer vacation days and weekends.

Those fruit sheets were often encased in those paper covered, foil-lined sealed wrappers that were insanely hard to open. My dad was notorious for using this teeth to rip them open. Since my fingers weren't doing the trick, I tried using my teeth.

I bit down, pulled hard. Nothing. Bit down harder, pull straight down. Nothing.

Tried one more time--- POP! The sound of stuff dropping on the linoleum kitchen floor.

I looked down, the wrapper was still sealed. Puzzled, I looked around and my grandfather came into the kitchen to see what was going on. He took one look at me and laughed.

I pulled my 2 front teeth out -- prematurely.

I think the teeth were eventually found, and I ended up visiting the dentist shortly after who inserted a wire around my upper gum-line to make sure my teeth would grow in properly.

They didn't... and I eventually needed braces... but that's a different story...

Ever since then, I've used scissors to open my packages and wrappers. Just in case.